HEALTH & LIFESTYLE
Nik, Our Precious Little Bundle
by Steff Prest-Hutchinson
We were in the Services, abroad and I have never felt so alone…
I have set up a Facebook support group for families within the Forces environment, who experienced, or are experiencing, the stress of having a premature baby… but I’m jumping ahead, let me tell you from the beginning.
M
y husband was posted to Germany back in 2008. A year later we had a little girl, Lara, which was
our third child then. My husband and I decided we would like to have one more, just to make the numbers even, well maybe not just because of that!
I found out I was expecting again a year after Lara was born and we were thrilled. Due date was Christmas 2010, which, well, we weren’t so thrilled about…
Unfortunately, by the end of August I found myself being admitted to the contracted German hospital. I was 20 weeks at that point. Three days into my stay I started having contractions and was rushed to a different hospital in a different town, which had a Level 1 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and able to cope with any baby, however early.
I stayed in this hospital until Nik was born nine weeks later. I ended up having an emergency C-section and Nikolai was born
on 14th October 2010. Gareth hadn’t had a chance to get to the hospital to be there for the birth as I had no chance to ring him before it all happened.
In no way was this a pleasurable experience, made worse as our oldest daughter was back to the UK for her first term at boarding school and our other two kids did not know what was going on. As we had our son I felt alone. Even though the doctors, midwives and paediatric nurses were all great, something was missing.
We were able to get information material about BLISS, a charity for premature babies and it was interesting to read all the information they could provide. But we faced a lot of challenges in those early weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and more at home.
Worst of all was that in Jan 11 Nik was admitted again to hospital for an operation on his stomach. It was meant to be a routine op but ended up with us nearly losing him
and another four week hospital stay, with the two of us in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit again.
All this time, and even now, I feel it would have been great to be able to speak to families who understood the situation and anxieties you feel, and the pressure of being in a family where husbands/wives are deployed and postings are something of the norm. It would have been great to have a chance to chat to other families in the same position, to understand my situation and to speak the same language.
This is why I came up with a virtual Support Group. Bliss is a fantastic charity which helped us so much but it was all geared around the experience in the UK, which of course we weren’t and I felt there was nothing for ‘us’. We might not have the baby in a UK hospital and might not even speak the language.
One thing I would like to mention is how very very proud I am of my two oldest children, Alysha and Nathan. Alysha may have been at boarding school, as this all was going on but she faced her own struggles and came out a far more confident young lady. Nathan had to cope with his older sister being away, Mum not there, a stressed Dad and a clingy one-year-old sister. He was just brilliant and because of this he received a SSAFA Young Achiever Award earlier this year.
So, if you know anyone who is either serving, or a family member of someone in the forces, who has had a premature baby, please tell them about this group and maybe we can all help each other: Bliss support group for the Tri Services.
www.raf-ff.org.uk Envoy Autumn 2012 31
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